WIPO tool to make searching clean tech patents easier

Research lead | Development lead

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has launched an on-line tool linked to its International Patent Classification (IPC) system make it easier to search for patent information relating to environmentally sound technologies. This will help in finding existing and emerging green technologies, as well as identifying potential partners for further development and commercial exploitation.

The tool, IPC Green Inventory, contains some 200 topics that are directly relevant to clean technologies. Each topic is linked with the most relevant IPC symbols, chosen by experts from around the world.   

The IPC Green Inventory is based on a list of technological terms listed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In turn, the inventory is hyperlinked to WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE service, to automatically search and show all cleantech international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty.  

WIPO says the IPC Green Inventory will also help researchers and industry to avoid investing R&D resources in developing green technology that already exists.  

The IPC system divides all fields of technology into hierarchical sets of sections, classes, subclasses and groups.  WIPO says it is “an indispensable tool” for conducting searches to establish prior art, or to determine the state of the art in a particular area of technology.  

For more information, visit: http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en/est/index.html